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SaTaMaS posted:I get pretty scared when people start saying things like "If things get bad enough, they'll HAVE to implent UBI". Not that you're saying that, but a lot of people seem to be. Here's one alternative - mass unemployment leads to social unrest, which leads to nationalism, which leads to war, which leads to lots of people getting killed off who would have otherwise been unemployed. Sound familiar? Yes absolutely. Obviously the country coming together in a mass unemployment scenario and saying "gee, it seems like our economy is fundamentally changing, we oughta rethink how we feel about work and income" is probably one of the best outcomes from a bad situation that anyone can hope for, while there are a multitude of other outcomes that are not great to say the least. However, given that there are so many possible outcomes, I was asking what people thought the chances were that something like basic income or a social dividend would end up getting implemented as a result of automation.
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Dec 8, 2016 02:57
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:The New Deal is how we got Social Security and Medicare though so there's more precedent of the rich caving in when poo poo is bad enough in the US than the Weimar outcome. Also I seem to recall the Weimar outcome blowing up in a lot of formerly wealthy peoples' faces which maybe will play a factor in how much they'll keep stoking the fire when poo poo starts getting real? the new deal was also extremely racist, though. like, redlining, the idea of institutionally denying housing loans to minorities, was a direct and deliberate outcome of the new deal HOLC. it's hard to get americans on board with social welfare unless you add the caveat "only for white americans"
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Dec 8, 2016 02:59
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rscott posted:Mazak variaxis i-800s with all the SmoothControl add ons My original post has a dig at Mazak for being the Apple of the industry but it's got nothing to do with the thread. For context saying 5 axis cost a million is like saying all sports cars cost millions because one new Ferrari does. That ignores all the affordable ones.
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Dec 8, 2016 03:06
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UBI is a worthless idea since it props up capitalism in the dumbest way possible. Markets would exploit it in the name of fairness and efficiency while politicians would gut it in the name of shared sacrifice and belt-tightening. At least modern European-style welfare states take from one hand and return to the other. Everyone benefits, though the system is rigged to benefit those less well off at the expense of those more well off. Giving straight cash to everyone (or worse, giving cash only to those not making enough) leads to a system where that cash becomes utterly useless unless the underlying structural issues of capitalism are addressed. There is a reason why Libertarians loved UBI in the '70s. So-called "socialists" in the modern era catching up with '70s libertarians is a symptom of regression, not progress.
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Dec 8, 2016 04:45
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Machinist chat: I feel semi-qualified to comment since I order parts from both US and China. In my experience, it would be super weird for any shop to be making things on a manual mill. Everywhere in both countries expects to be doing CNC work and starting from CAD files, not prints. The only place who's ever wanted a print is a little shop in SF that had a waterjet that took some bizarre input format that was easier for them to make from a drawing instead of a CAD file, but it was still computer controlled when it ran. Based on turnaround times and design restrictions, I'm pretty sure the US prototyping shop we usually use is set up for lights-out manufacturing and a machinist is just checking a mostly automated toolpath, then running it unattended overnight. The Chinese one has people running the machines. US: - Faster - Closer tolerances China: - Takes at least 5 days to get stuff - Stuff you don't bug them about can be wrong (i.e. if you don't make a point of asking, you can get surfaces that aren't as square as speced) - Half/quarter of the price, less if you feel like haggling (pretty sure they're still ripping us off compared to what they would charge domestically) - You can get weird custom things that the US workflow isn't set up for. For example, we wanted a fine diamond polish on the inside of an injection mold and the US company couldn't do it. I think the Chinese one just had a guy spend a day polishing.
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Dec 8, 2016 06:07
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owl_pellet posted:I am interested in this topic because of the possible implications it has for creating more robust social security systems such as basic income or a social dividend, or to a somewhat lesser extent minimum income. What are the chances that something like this 1) gets implemented at all and 2) is implemented in a fairly reasonable period of time (I'm tempted to say 10 years here but "reasonable" for something that massive is probably more like 20)? Chances are decent if you live in a progressive European country. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/netherlands-utrecht-universal-basic-income-experiment/487883/ Shbobdb posted:UBI is a worthless idea since it props up capitalism in the dumbest way possible. Markets would exploit it in the name of fairness and efficiency while politicians would gut it in the name of shared sacrifice and belt-tightening. UBI might have to deal a blow to the current capitalist system since there simply isn't enough money to implement it. I think it's the best chance the socialists have because they are losing ground everywhere. And what specific exploits do you see happening? Markets try to exploit whatever system is in place.
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Dec 8, 2016 10:55
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You guys are critizing UBI, and is not a good idea to critize something that you don't have a alternative too. (If you don't have a alternative to something, you have to accept it even if is really bad). I will help by offering a alternative: *TRUMPETS* Equalized Income System Capitalism! *TADA* Everyone pay with a special card. This card knows the economic wealth of the individual, and is set on ranges A, B,C,D,E,F. If you are using public transportation and you are unemployeed, you pay with this card, and is free. If you have a entry level job position, it cost 1 dollar. If you are billionarie, it cost 100.000 dollars. Every day, transportation, food, rent, cost the same % of the wealth of the individual. A nice feature of this system is that we can start small. We create the card, and we make it compatible with transporation system, then we expand it to work in food shops. We can start making it work exactly like a discount card. So if you are unemployeed and take a bus, is a 100% discount. If you are retired and have a small pension, the discount is a 90% (but still cost something). If you have a job, the discount is 0%. Every dollar a shop lose because one of these discount can be saves from taxes. So if you hare a shop owner and you offered 100.000$ in discounts, then you have to pay 100.000 less in taxes, or maybe the governement will give you the difference. Tei fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Dec 8, 2016 |
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Dec 8, 2016 11:28
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Tei posted:You guys are critizing UBI, and is not a good idea to critize something that you don't have a alternative too. (If you don't have a alternative to something, you have to accept it even if is really bad). Hey Ben, my unemployed buddy... Hop in the car, I need to buy groceries for the week. You do have your card with you, right?
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Dec 8, 2016 12:13
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Doctor Malaver posted:Chances are decent if you live in a progressive European country.
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Dec 8, 2016 12:27
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Doctor Malaver posted:Chances are decent if you live in a progressive European country. And are white. No way current European political sentiment is going to be ok with providing anything as radical as a mincome to non-whites.
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Dec 8, 2016 12:43
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Foxfire_ posted:Machinist chat: What about the claim by companies that there aren't enough people trained in Advanced Manufacturing in the US, so they have to go to China or Mexico instead? Accurate or bullshit?
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Dec 8, 2016 13:10
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Foxfire_ posted:Machinist chat: idk what to tell you man but we just bought two more 50 year old Bridgeports to run 777-X drag links on, the models may be cad but the machines sure as hell aren't e: and this is a company that has more portable cmms than QA inspectors to use them so it's not like we're technology adverse
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Dec 8, 2016 14:06
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SaTaMaS posted:What about the claim by companies that there aren't enough people trained in Advanced Manufacturing in the US, so they have to go to China or Mexico instead? Accurate or bullshit? As a general rule of thumb, if a company claims there just aren't enough X workers to meet their demand, what they really mean is that there aren't enough X workers interested in what they're willing to pay for X, either because the company insists on underpaying for the level of skill or experience they're asking for, or because there's some massive distortion of the labor market going on (for example, the main cause of the "programmer shortage" is the massive over-concentration of tech companies in one specific place, oversaturating the local labor market).
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Dec 8, 2016 14:46
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Orange Devil posted:And are white. No way current European political sentiment is going to be ok with providing anything as radical as a mincome to non-whites. How's race involved with this? Do you for some reason mean 'refugees' when you say 'non-white'? I find it hard to believe that the 250 residents of Utrecht will be discriminated based on race. If anything, I'd expect that there will be more minorities among them than in the national average.
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Dec 8, 2016 14:52
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Main Paineframe posted:As a general rule of thumb, if a company claims there just aren't enough X workers to meet their demand, what they really mean is that there aren't enough X workers interested in what they're willing to pay for X, either because the company insists on underpaying for the level of skill or experience they're asking for, or because there's some massive distortion of the labor market going on (for example, the main cause of the "programmer shortage" is the massive over-concentration of tech companies in one specific place, oversaturating the local labor market). Yes I realize that, but on the other hand there's a record low employment participation rate. Getting paid $35/hour for what people in Germany get paid $55/hour for isn't great, but it's much more than the average salary and it doesn't even require a 4-year degree.
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Dec 8, 2016 15:06
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Main Paineframe posted:As a general rule of thumb, if a company claims there just aren't enough X workers to meet their demand, what they really mean is that there aren't enough X workers interested in what they're willing to pay for X, either because the company insists on underpaying for the level of skill or experience they're asking for, or because there's some massive distortion of the labor market going on (for example, the main cause of the "programmer shortage" is the massive over-concentration of tech companies in one specific place, oversaturating the local labor market).
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Dec 8, 2016 15:07
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What's really going on is all the top talent in small niche fields is being horded by a handful of companies. There's a strong demand and high wages for certain kinds of work like machine learning specialists, and companies like google will hire these people and make them sign a no-compete just to deny them to a competitor. edit: the wages for general sysadmin and gruntwork sort of stuff is perposely being driven down though
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Dec 8, 2016 16:04
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Cicero posted:To be fair, by this definition there's basically never a shortage of anything anywhere. Like you couldn't say "there's a shortage of [game console] at launch, it's sold out at stores" because hey there are some up on ebay for 2 grand, right? The nature of the word 'shortage' is that it means 'harder to find than expected/reasonable'. This is scarcity vs shortage. Shortage is when there isn't enough supply to equal demand at a given price point. Scarce means the amount is limited by something. Almost everything is scarce. The general rule of thumb is that baring wage controls there is never a shortage of labor, only a shortage of wages.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:37
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It seems kind of silly to do too much pearl clutching over the state of the labor market for an industry where the median salary is above the national median household income and the unemployment rate is around half of the general rate.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:40
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SaTaMaS posted:Yes I realize that, but on the other hand there's a record low employment participation rate. Getting paid $35/hour for what people in Germany get paid $55/hour for isn't great, but it's much more than the average salary and it doesn't even require a 4-year degree. The machinists aren't sitting around unemployed, they're working at the US companies that do pay $55/hr, and the companies that can't attract any talent because they're paying $35/hr are the only ones complaining about a "shortage". It's the same with the pilot shortage. The only airlines complaining about a shortage are smaller regional airlines that have been engaged in a race to the bottom on price for so long that they pay a third of what major airlines would pay for the same qualifications and experience, so theyre constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel and getting only the dregs that the major airlines won't touch.
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Dec 8, 2016 18:45
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Doctor Malaver posted:How's race involved with this? Do you for some reason mean 'refugees' when you say 'non-white'? I find it hard to believe that the 250 residents of Utrecht will be discriminated based on race. If anything, I'd expect that there will be more minorities among them than in the national average. I mean that far right wing parties are on the rise across Europe and they're going to kill the poo poo out of initiatives like this as soon as they help anyone in whichever group they've defined as the Other. So in the Netherlands, if it turns out someone with a Moroccan background is getting free money, the PVV is going to paint the whole scheme as a left wing hobby of the out of touch liberal elite who like to coddle and drink tea with terrorists while giving them your hard earned tax money to be lazy and/or do bad things to our daughters.
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Dec 8, 2016 18:49
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SaTaMaS posted:Yes I realize that, but on the other hand there's a record low employment participation rate. Getting paid $35/hour for what people in Germany get paid $55/hour for isn't great, but it's much more than the average salary and it doesn't even require a 4-year degree. Not too many people getting $35/hr to be a CNC programmer w/o a degree unless they have 20 years of experience, it's closer to 40k for 5 years of mastercam and catia experience from what I have seen
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Dec 8, 2016 18:56
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rscott posted:Not too many people getting $35/hr to be a CNC programmer w/o a degree unless they have 20 years of experience, it's closer to 40k for 5 years of mastercam and catia experience from what I have seen I meant it requires a 2-year associates degree instead of a bachelors
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Dec 8, 2016 22:47
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rscott posted:idk what to tell you man but we just bought two more 50 year old Bridgeports to run 777-X drag links on, the models may be cad but the machines sure as hell aren't I don't know the part your talking about but there are some things still faster on manual machines or old auto's. If the work isn't complex and there's good jigging then an operator on a dinosaur can be quite cost effective. We do most of our prototyping in the tool room on manual machines to get samples out, for very short run parts it's still cost effective as well. Most of my work is still done off paper drawings, sure they are generated from a model (oh look automation ending a trade) but I don't get access to the model in most cases. Hell I do a lot of work off sketches that don't even have tolerances and often missing dimensions, I've even made runs of parts "fit for purpose" where a customer just drops off the mating part/assembly and says go for it. If the numbers thrown around is this thread are right then that's quite surprising. AUD$35 an hour is top dollar for CNC programming and setting here so US$35 sounds amazing. Just a nit pick there are no CAD machines but I'm confident the bridgeports are not CNCed. That's just me being a  though I know what you meant.
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Dec 9, 2016 01:29
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LeJackal posted:This is an interesting take.. Fiction is about to become reality, but like reality won't to do, there's a catch: quote:Deep inside Bridgewater Associates LP, the world’s largest hedge-fund firm, software engineers are at work on a secret project that founder Ray Dalio has sometimes called “The Book of the Future.” quote:Data are incorporated from a phalanx of personality tests that Mr. Dalio requires of his employees. In one, managers undergo written exams to determine their “stratum,” an unconventional score for conceptual skills developed by the late Canadian-born psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques.
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Dec 22, 2016 22:10
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I thought it might have been why this thread popped back up, but there was a White House economic report on automation this week.quote:The report cites two different attempts to predict the rate of automation. Optimistically, researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that many occupations are likely to change as some of their associated tasks become automated but not go away entirely. They estimate that only 9 percent of jobs are at risk in the next decade or two. However a separate analysis by Carl Frey and Michael Osbourne, which asked a panel of experts on AI to classify occupations by how likely automation would be to replace them, found that 47 percent of US jobs are at risk. Its assessment is similar to the one that was included with an earlier White House report on the economy. The biggest difference is that there's more of a focus on "AI" and automation in forms other than actual industrial robots. From the report itself: quote:Historically and across countries, however, there has been a strong relationship between productivity and wages—and with more AI the most plausible outcome will be a combination of higher wages and more opportunities for leisure for a wide range of workers. But the degree that this materializes depends not just on the nature of technological change but importantly on the policy and institutional choices that are made about how to prepare workers for AI and to handle its impacts on the labor market. The policy suggestions are pretty much exactly what's been discussed in this thread: strengthening safety nets and increasing access to education and job training. The tone of the report is fairly neutral, but the details make it clear just how loving awful a time this is for the Republicans to be running the show. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Dec 22, 2016 |
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Dec 22, 2016 23:54
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Paradoxish posted:I thought it might have been why this thread popped back up, but there was a White House economic report on automation this week. I'm looking forward to at least 4 years where when the government supplies bullshit figures the majority of the populace at least know they are being lied to. 50% is definitely the more accurate number, in my experience.
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Dec 23, 2016 03:45
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I am software developers and some of the software I have made have helped do more work with less people. And let me tell you something: - It take time to turn a task into something that computers can do. Humans like complex-for-no-reason workflows and a billion of probably-unnecesary exceptions. Withouth these complex workflows and exceptions, making some task automatic would take very littel time. But with these it may take many years. Is like the absorption of blue-collar jobs into automatic process in a server will be slower than most people predict, because these task as unnecesary barroque, and that slow down the process. No doubt most blue-collar are going to be extinct in the long term, but I believe is going to be a very slow and smooth process that will take maybe more than 50 years. Creating new process that are 100% computer driven from the beginning will be much faster. So I expect that we will see a startup where the boss is a algorithm in less than 5 years, But it will take these 50 years for having software that can do most blue collar jobs in a medium size company. I think people will have enough time to adapt, and ample warning to plan ahead their life. I don't think AI is all that relevant here. AI is a way to create software that learn to do a simple task that can't be described only in rules. It don't make computers more powerful, but more flexible. Is only a tool in the toolbox, and not even a important one. What I am tryiing to say is that most jobs can already be described by a set of rules, so they don't need anything more advanced that a perl script.
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Dec 23, 2016 09:23
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I work as a project manager and I can't even begin to imagine how my job could be automated. I have to be a psychologist and a product designer and make decisions from marketing to technology. Either I'm deluding myself or the companies that I've been working for are too small and chaotic for that kind of automation.
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Dec 23, 2016 11:44
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Doctor Malaver posted:I work as a project manager and I can't even begin to imagine how my job could be automated. I have to be a psychologist and a product designer and make decisions from marketing to technology. Either I'm deluding myself or the companies that I've been working for are too small and chaotic for that kind of automation. You wont come into work one day and find yourself be replaced by PROJECT MANAGER 3000, you will gradually see small parts of your job be automated. Or perhaps not even your own job, but the jobs of the people you are managing as part of your own job. Until a moment comes were you really arent that necessary anymore.
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Dec 23, 2016 13:07
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9-Volt Assault posted:You wont come into work one day and find yourself be replaced by PROJECT MANAGER 3000, you will gradually see small parts of your job be automated. Or perhaps not even your own job, but the jobs of the people you are managing as part of your own job. Until a moment comes were you really arent that necessary anymore. which is a process that's already happening; how many hours out of your week are getting saved by using something like TeamworkPM (or, gently caress, Outlook) instead of having endless team meetings and manually micromanaging your crew's schedules the way folks did in the 70s, so you can be re-tasked to take on someone else's job like product design? The chaotic do-everything kind of interstitial jobs tend to be what's left over of what was once three or four specialists' jobs mushed together, and as algorithmic solutions to some of your more time-consuming tasks get developed your position will be merged with someone else's to leave one person doing the work of ten, and nine people the market doesn't really need anymore. A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Dec 23, 2016 |
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Dec 23, 2016 16:41
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Doctor Malaver posted:I work as a project manager and I can't even begin to imagine how my job could be automated. I have to be a psychologist and a product designer and make decisions from marketing to technology. Either I'm deluding myself or the companies that I've been working for are too small and chaotic for that kind of automation. Don't look at things from the artificial intelligence/technological singularity point of view necessary for asking, "How can they replace my job with a robot? It's just not possible!" That's not where the effects of automation show up. Nobody is going to come into work one day and see a human shaped artificial robot sitting in their chair and get their termination letter because, again, that's not how the effects of automation show up. You see and feel the effects of automation when you're applying for the 20th job and going to the sixth interview that week and all you get are job offers for an entry-level (and entry-pay) position that requires minimum six years experience in absolutely, precisely "Widget Version 17.3 Twisting and Modeling , no other versions accepted". That is how automation effects labor, with the gradual creeping process of little pieces here and there being automated and then welp no reason hiring anybody this quarter, productivity is up! The result of automation that people are going to feel is that hopeless situation resulting from weeks of not having a job, watching your savings evaporate and devoting every waking hour to trying for a job or stressing about trying for jobs, doing everything you can sun up to sun down trying to get one and having nothing but a constant parade of doors slammed in your face. THAT is how you feel the effects of automation under a hyper capitalist society.
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Dec 23, 2016 16:46
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Doctor Malaver posted:I work as a project manager and I can't even begin to imagine how my job could be automated. I have to be a psychologist and a product designer and make decisions from marketing to technology. Either I'm deluding myself or the companies that I've been working for are too small and chaotic for that kind of automation. Uhhhhh, no why would you ever automate a project manager? That's crazy difficult to do. That doesn't mean PMs will survive though. You won't have a job when everyone you're managing is automated. Think outside the box yo you're a PM.
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Dec 23, 2016 17:03
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And even if a specific job can't be automated, there are smarter, more talented people working in higher paying jobs that are going to be automated, and then you're going to be competing against them, and since they're desperate, they'll take a pay cut.
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Dec 23, 2016 17:31
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Veskit posted:Uhhhhh, no why would you ever automate a project manager? That's crazy difficult to do. Is this a joke? You wouldn't automate the project manager, you'd automate the project.
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Dec 23, 2016 17:32
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Doctor Malaver posted:I work as a project manager and I can't even begin to imagine how my job could be automated. I have to be a psychologist and a product designer and make decisions from marketing to technology. Either I'm deluding myself or the companies that I've been working for are too small and chaotic for that kind of automation. Do you use an ERP or MRP software suite? If so large portions of your job have already been automated
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Dec 23, 2016 17:47
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Is this a joke? Literally what I said
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Dec 23, 2016 17:52
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I think some automation has been lagging in its implementation because of the integration if the technology with the preexisting systems and employees and that's already been touched on. Another thing that is going away is communication. An example here. On the west coast if I wanted to find a specific container in a terminal or on a ship I have to call or email somebody. In savannah all I had to do was look it up on the Internet. The transmission of information isn't going to need people eventually.
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Dec 23, 2016 18:02
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:And even if a specific job can't be automated, there are smarter, more talented people working in higher paying jobs that are going to be automated, and then you're going to be competing against them, and since they're desperate, they'll take a pay cut. Alternatively, enough of the hard parts get made easy that instead of 1 full time/ salaried PM you have 2 part timers working 25 a piece for half the cost and no benefits, or you delegate the responsibilities throughout the team and promote one person to Team Lead (read: more responsibilities for almost exactly the same pay) and cut out the PM role entirely
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Dec 23, 2016 18:49
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That WH report seems to shy away from advocating any kind of basic income solution and only hints at vague things like 'increasing the social safety net' while mostly falling back on retraining as the solution. Which, of course, doesn't deal with the obvious question of what you're going to be retraining these people for as more and more jobs automate away, or how you're going to fit the millions of people in need of retraining into a system that's hardly built to contain them. There are a few experiments in basic income going on in other countries, though. And past experiments in the area have shown that most of the assumptions people make about it are wrong. Most people receiving it don't stop working, they tend to be healthier and more productive, it helps the local economy and encourages entrepreneurs to try new business ideas. You'd think that would be a bipartisan win-win. But no, we live in a post-sanity society, so we'll probably soon be screaming BOOTSTRAPS at each other while we fight over the last scraps of rat meat.
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Dec 23, 2016 19:16
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